Happy Holidays!

Today our ALP class hosted an "open house" where staff and students dropped by for hot chocolate and cookies.  There were crafts to do, songs to sing and stories to read but most of all there was friendship to share.  Yesterday, our ACCESS class presented a wonderful adaptation of a Christmas Carol to an appreciative audience of staff and parents.  A big hit this week was the gingerbread house decorating contest where home rooms competed for TA points.  It has been a fun Christmas season at MidSun.  Of special note is the work our students did to adopt 3 families for Christmas.  Our team of elves delivered our food and gifts to  this week and knowing we helped to make their Christmas a little brighter made us all feel good.

Whatever you will be doing this holiday, we at MidSun want to wish you the very best for the holiday season.  We hope you have a good rest and we look forward to working and learning together in the New Year.

Grade 7 Egg Drop

Students in Grade 7 Science Class were having fun all week dropping eggs in the Atrium! 

The students designed and created a container that would house a raw egg and protect it from any impacts.

Students applied what they had learned about various structure and design concepts such as load bearing forces, tensile strength, compression and tension to create their apparatus. They then tested it by dropping it from the second floor to the atrium and see if it would protect the egg from the impact!

Tutoring Program

Our tutoring program is now on hiatus. The Centennial High school students need to get ready for their Diploma Exam.
The Tutoring program will start again on Feb 22nd 2012.

Do you have lovely calendars you will recycle in the new year?

Do you have lovely calendars you will recycle in the new year?  If so, PLEASE DON’T! 

Instead Donate your beautiful old calendars to the Art Room! Miss Kaminski will use the calendars for inspiration in  drawings and paintings in her art class.  If you have last year’s calendars with pictures of cars, animals, landscapes, cartoons etc.  please consider sending them with your child in January to Miss Kaminski (in the Art Room). If you have any questions, please contact Miss Kaminski at DMKaminski@cbe.ab.ca.

Thank you!

MidSun School Parent Council, Fundraising Update

While the temperature outside may be falling, the fundraising thermometer is on the rise at MidSun School. The MidSun School Education Enhancement Society (MSEES), the fund-raising arm of Parent Council, has made great strides in its first year -- so far pushing our bank account balance to almost $6,000 since September. Thanks to everyone who has supported our school through the many initiatives undertaken to date, including direct donations through the CBE Foundation, the recent Purdy’s chocolate sale, the Epicure sale and fall book fair. We know there are many other organizations seeking your dollars and we greatly appreciate your generosity.

We’re just getting started with our fundraising and plan to launch our grocery gift card program next month. Information on this will be coming home with students on dazzling pink sheets (you can’t miss them) in early January. This program could raise as much as $6,000 a month for our school, so it has the potential to be a significant source of funds. We all buy groceries, so why not get the stores we shop at to give a little back to us!

Just as a reminder, the money we raise will help to enhance our children’s learning experience at MidSun. We are investigating a number of possible matching-grant programs to leverage our dollars even more. Our long-term goal is to purchase SMART Boards for classroom use, though we have a substantial list of other needed items for physed, language/social, math/science, and all of the excellent options available at MidSun. We are also hoping to support the creation of an “outdoor classroom ” on the school grounds.

Please come and join us at our next Parent Council and MSEES meeting on January 12, 2012, in the school library at 7 p.m. We’d love to see you.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.

Staffing update

Ms. Wong has decided to resign from the CBE.  She had many personal reasons for making the decision. While Ms. Wong has only been here for a short time, she has made an impact on our school and her work with the other members of her professional learning community and grade teams appreciated her support.  She also ran the chess club which attracted higher numbers than they have seen for a few years.  We will miss her.

We are fortunate to have a talented and experienced teacher as her replacement.  Please welcome Robert Billing to gold pod. He brings seventeen years of secondary teaching experience to this position.  He received his education in Montreal where he taught for five years.  He moved west in 1997 and became part of the Alberta education system through the Rockyview School Division.  He taught grades nine through twelve at Chestermere High School for eleven years.  He has also worked at West View School in the Calgary Young Offenders Centre for four months under a temporary contract with the CBE. He has worked together with Ms. Wong to make the transition a smooth one for our students.     

Tis the season day on Friday Dec 16

Leadership students are running lots of TA challenges this week for a bit of Seasonal fun over the lunch hour.  This Friday is Tis the season day and students and staff are encouraged to dress festive!

The Cup at MidSun

On Friday and Saturday, MidSun was host to 50 debate teams from across Canada

In the semi finals, debaters from MidSun, Vivian and Brad defeated a team from Regina
and in the Grand Final, in front of a crowd of 250, Vivian and Brad won an epic debate and brought the cup home!

Mark updates & Ends Reporting

Teachers have been busy working with students to target certain areas of the Calgary Board of Education Ends Statements and to create personal goals.  Recently, students have been working with teachers to evaluate their progress in the pursuit of their goals and to modify their goals if necessary.  Today a report card will come home with students that gives you an update on their progress.  English Language Learners will also receive their report cards that will indicate their progress on Alberta Education’s new English Language Learner Benchmarks.

You should also receive an email today from each student’s teacher that will show their marks in every assignment to date.  Please let the office know on Monday if you do not receive mark updates.  We will track down what the problem might be.  We will be holding parent teacher interviews by appointment only on December 22^nd from 1:45-3:30PM.  Please contact the teacher directly if you have any concerns.

Discovery Education is Now Here!

Midsun School has subscribed to Discoveyy Education Streaming. Discovery Education Streaming is a comprehensive K-12 library of digital resources that enables seamless integration of standards-based videos into classroom lessons.

Discovery Education streaming offers videos and resources from award-winning producers such as Discovery Education, Discovery School, Standard Deviants, Weston Woods and more!  This is a great resource to supplement learning in class. 

The login credentials will be sent via an email Synervoice.

Purdy's Pick Up!

Thank you to everyone who supported our Purdy's Christmas Sweets for Smartboards fundraiser.  Our school raised  $1869.29 towards our smartboard goal!  You may pick up your sweets today and tomorrow at the end of the school day. A BIG thank you to Pam and all of her volunteers who made this fundraiser a great success!

Band Concert tonight at 7PM

Everyone is invited to attend our band concert tonight, December 6th, 2011 at 7PM. Our students have been working hard and sounding great!  Everyone is welcome.

Basketball tryouts are here!

	Mon. Dec 5th	Tues. Dec. 6th	Wed. Dec. 7th	Thurs. Dec. 8th	Fri. Dec. 9th
7:45-            bb8:45am	Organizational Day No School	Grade 8 Boys	Grade 8 Girls	Grade 8 Girls	Grade 9 Girls (7:15am)
3:45-      bb5:00pm		Christmas Concert 7-9	Grade 9 Girls	Grade 9 Boys	Grade 8 Boys (1:35-3:00)
5:00-     bb6:00pm			Grade 9 Boys

	Mon. Dec. 12th	Tues. Dec. 13th	Wed. Dec. 14th	Thurs. Dec. 15th	Fri. Dec. 16th
7:45-      bb8:45am	Grade 8 Boys	Grade 9 Girls (7:15 am)	Grade 8 Girls
3:45-5:00pm	Grade 8 Girls	Grade 9 Boys	Grade 8 Boys	Grade 9 Girls
5:00-6:00pm				Grade 9 Boys

	Mon. Dec. 19th	Tues. Dec. 20th	Wed. Dec. 21st	Thurs. Dec. 22nd	Fri. Dec. 23rd
7:45- bb8:45am	Grade 8 Boys	Grade 9 Girls (7:15 am)	Grade 8 Girls		No School Christmas Break Begins!!